The Voting Rights Act beyond the Headlines

Abstract: This article introduces readers to the ongoing African American struggle for full voting rights from Reconstruction to the present. It explains some of the significant ways white supremacists (mis)used the legal and political system, along with violence and economic terrorism, to suppress the Black vote. The essay gives particular attention to the collective work of African Americans to secure voting rights during the modern Civil Rights Movement, with a focus on the organizing work of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), mentored by Ella Baker. While many people give well-known leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson credit for the Voting Rights Act of 1965, SNCC workers immersed themselves in communities for bottom-up organizing to demand the vote and make it impossible for the country to continue to ignore the violent suppression of Black rights. The article concludes with contemporary voting rights challenges.